"-better here. No sense trying just to fail, like you know you will. No more letting your friends down when they learn what a failure you really are." The rat hissed and tore something out of the orb floating beside it, causing it to dim further. "This is where you deserve to be. You'd just mess everything up if you went anywhere else."

The orb shivered as the cruel red eyes of the three rats surrounding it grew brighter. "It's better for you to be here. Now you don't have to worry about hurting anyone, or letting them down, or screwing all their hopes up by being the rotten, miserable thing you are. The one smart thing you ever did was turn those annoying cats away-"

The rat exploded into goo as a black cat pounced on it and slammed it into the ground.

Pipsqueak hissed at the two other rats, arching her back as she stalked forward. She swiped at one, showing off claws still stained with the goo of the first rat, and it hissed and advanced towards her.

It burst into goo as Oliver leapt from behind a tree and pounced on the rat.

The final rat hissed back at the cats and moved behind the spirit, keeping the dull orb between itself and the cats.

"Careful. The Native will destroy the memory if it gets a chance. Don't let go of it until you're certain Roger will touch it first." Oliver began moving away from Pipsqueak, circling around the orb and stalking towards the rat. "I will deal with this one while you work on him. Good luck."

Pipsqueak twitched her tail at Oliver, then looked back up at the spirit. "We're back! Do you remember us?" The black cat raised her voice, almost yelling angrily as she called out to the orb.

The gray orb shivered. "Yes... those cats. You brought those memories..." The dim glow around the orb began to turn blue, and the orb sank towards the ground. "Just go away... those memories hurt."

"No. You have to come back with us." Pipsqueak glanced warily at the rat on the far side of the spirit, but it seemed to be focusing on edging away from Oliver. "There is someone waiting for you. She needs you."

"I can't." Blue began to tinge the dim glow around the orb. "I already told you. I've tried; I couldn't do it. I can't give her what she needs. I can't do anything right."

"Then keep trying!" Pipsqueak growled and began circling after Oliver, edging away from the rat as it crept towards her. "It doesn't matter if somebody else tells you a tree can't be climbed, or even if you've failed fifty-three times in a row. You'll just be better at the fifty-fourth try than they could ever hope to be." She shifted again, making sure the spirit was between her and the rat, then looked back at the dull orb. "Not every hunt works. It's disappointing, but it doesn't mean anything. I've failed to catch hundreds of mice. I've gone to bed hungry, and woken up starving. Trying and failing happens; even I know that."

"It happens if you're a failure." The rat hissed and slipped closer to Pipsqueak. "If you can't catch mice, you're just as much of a screw-up as he is. Other cats catch mice with no trouble at all. It's just what they do. If you can't do it, then that's because something is wrong with you." The rat paused to sit up on its hindlegs, then pointed one curled paw up at the orb. "Just like there is with Roger, who can't even find a job to pay his bills. Everybody else manages it just fine. The problem is with him."

Oliver's tail swished behind him, and he jumped through the air to pounce at the distracted rat. The rat hissed at the last second and stepped to the side, then jumped onto Oliver's back as the cat landed. The orange cat let out a yowl of pain and began rolling on the ground, but the rat clung to his back.

"No it isn't! All those other cats had to learn too. They couldn't catch mice. Someone had to show them how. And then they messed up again, and again, and again, just like I did. Until one day, they didn't. You can't just look at how we are now and think it was never hard for us." The black cat edged towards Oliver, ready to help him with the rat, but he finally managed to fling the rat away. She turned back to the dull orb instead, moving back towards him. "And even then, sometimes we still screw up, and our prey gets away. That's not because something's wrong with us, that's just how life is. It doesn't mean something is wrong with you just because it's hard sometimes, even impossible. It just means you have to keep trying."

The orb shivered and dropped closer to the ground. "It hasn't worked. Nothing I did changes anything. I'm so tired of trying..."

"But you have to do it anyway." Oliver pushed himself back to his feet beside the orb. "Nothing will ever change otherwise." The orange tabby moved away from the orb and hissed at the rat. Scratches dotted his back, and a patch of fur had been ripped free, but he stalked forward to stand between the orb and the rat.

The rat returned his hiss and held up claws spotted with blood.

Pipsqueak started to walk towards the orb, ready to continue, only to pause and look back at the rat. "Oliver, is the rat getting bigger...?"

An angry laugh resonated around the cats. The rat leaned calmly down and licked at the prickly claws on its paws. "Yes, foolish kitten. You didn't actually think my two friends were gone, did you?" It stood up on its hindlegs and smirked, demonstrating how much larger it stood by staring at Pipsqueak right at her eye level.

Oliver lunged forward with a slash of his claws, but the rat ducked and fell back. "It's right. I told you, these aren't rats. It's getting help from the two we squashed – they'll make this one stronger and larger. Try to hurry."

Pipsqueak nodded and turned back to the orb. "Yes, you might fail some more times if you go back. But one day you'll succeed. You'll manage what you're trying. But only if you come back with us. You'll never succeed if you stay here."

"But it's so hard... It's not worth it..."

"Yes, it is. There's someone waiting for you right now." The rat hissed and tried to dart around Oliver, but Pipsqueak scampered away and dodged behind the spirit. "She's worth trying again. You can't run away and hide; she needs you!"

"She'll be better off without you! She's stupid; she's dumb enough to think you can help her." The rat turned back towards the spirit, but stopped as Oliver edged between them. "She'll figure it out soon enough. Either when she's starving because you went back and left her stuck with a miserable failure, or after she's found somebody that can actually take care of her. You aren't good enough for her! You don't deserve her."

Another shiver went through the spirit. "It's right... she'd be better off without me. She doesn't need me. I'm not worth it."

"It's wrong – it's lying! Stop listening to it, and listen to her instead! Because she says you are worth it! She doesn't want somebody else, she wants you. She's out there waiting for you, begging us to come in here and get you. If you don't come back, she's going to come here, to this miserable place, just to be with you again." Pipsqueak's fur began to rise as her voice grew louder. "You aren't helping her by hiding here!"

"You'll just make everything worse for her if you go back!" The rat snarled and lunged towards Oliver, biting at the orange cat, but Oliver swiped at the last minute and sent the rat tumbling away. The rat rested on the ground for a moment, growing larger as it did... then its growl grew louder, and it climbed back to its feet. "You're selfish for even wanting to go back. Just think of all the pain and misery you'll put her through if she's stuck with you."

The dull gray glow shifted to blue, and the orb shivered again. "That's right... I don't want to put her through all that..."

"Pipsqueak, talking doesn't work. If it was that easy, Roger wouldn't have ended up here. He's listened to these Natives for too long to just be talked out of it. Get the memory ready!" Oliver hissed again, turning the sound into a yowl... then he lunged towards the rat.

The orange cat and the cat-sized rat began tumbling between trees. Oliver raked at the rat's sides, but the rat clawed back at him. The rat pulled away from Oliver and tried to dash back towards the spirit, but Oliver pounced on its tail and pulled it back.

"You already put her through it! Listening to these rats hasn't made things better; it's just caused her pain." Pipsqueak yelled over the sound of the snarling and hissing on the opposite side of the spirit. The black cat turned back and bit down at the blue speckle in her fur. The feeling of pain redoubled as she yanked the memory free... then she looked back at the dull orb and spat out the memory.

The flickering ember fell to the ground before the dull gray sphere, replaced a second later by the same soft pillow of the earlier memory.

Pipsqueak snarled up at the spirit. "Go on and touch it! Look at what listening to these rats did!"

"NO!" The rat snarled and shoved Oliver away. It ran forward, racing towards the pillow. Pipsqueak hissed and dove in front of the memory, guarding it from the rat. The rat growled and dove to the side, racing in a circle and preparing to dash past the smaller cat's claws even as Oliver got back to his feet and chased after...

A flash of light filled the forest as the dim orb touched the pillow.

The bedroom replaced the forest once more. Instead of being on the ground, Pipsqueak and Oliver found themselves back on Roger's blanket. The sense of warmth and comfort was absent this time, though, and only a horrible feeling of sorrow filled the room. Pipsqueak had just enough time to hear a sobbing whine...

...then the rat dove into her.

She tumbled from the bed and landed on the soft carpet of the memory. She jumped away just as the rat struck the spot she had landed in, narrowly dodging a swipe of its claws. The rat started to lunge at the black cat once more, only to jerk away as Oliver landed between them with an angry yowl.

The rat growled again. "You miserable, stupid cats! He's not leaving – just give up already!" It glared with its angry red eyes... then it leapt at Oliver, slashing out with blood stained claws. Oliver tried to dodge, but the rat managed to land on the orange cat's back and bowled him over onto his side. It hissed again, preparing to bite down at the cat's neck...

Pipsqueak slammed into the rat and flung it off of Oliver. The rat went flying underneath the bed, vanishing in the shadows.

Oliver lay on the ground for another second or two, sides heaving for air... then he slowly clawed his way back to his paws. He stood next to Pipsqueak, swishing his tail, and the two cats stared into the darkness beneath the bed.

Two very large, very hateful red eyes glared back out at them.

The three of them exchanged hisses and glares for another moment... then another flash of light filled the room. When it cleared the room was gone, and only the dreary trees of the forest were around them. The rat growled from beside one of the trees and began circling slowly around the cats. The two cats stared at the rat for a moment... then they turned to look at the dull orb floating between them.

The faint glow from before now held tinges of red along with the blue.

"I didn't... that wasn't what I wanted..." The spirit shivered as it spoke, and it wobbled over the ground. "I just wanted... I was too tired, I never wanted..."

"You failed." The rat hissed and rose onto its hindlegs again, stabbing an accusing paw up at the spirit. "You couldn't even die right! That's how much of a screwup you are!"

"That's not tru-" Oliver started to step closer to the spirit, but Pipsqueak hissed and moved in front of the orange tabby.

"Yes it is! You did fail. But not because you're a failure, or because anything is wrong with you! You failed because you listened to this rat." Pipsqueak stepped into the reddish glow and hissed at the rat. "It's been lying to you! The rat knew that would happen to her if you listened to it, and it told you those things because it wanted that to happen. The only mistake you made was believing the things it said! That was your failure. Not any of those other things. Those were all just part of life. Everybody faces those things; you aren't any worse because you faced them."

More red began to burn in the dull orb. "It wanted that to happen...?"

"I'm just telling you what you know to be true! You are a failure! You belong here. You don't deserve to go back with these cats. You don't deserve life. It's just wasted on you." The rat growled and began advancing towards Pipsqueak. "You already threw it away; why should you get to try again? You aren't worth it!"

"So what?" Pipsqueak arched her back and fluffed out her fur, nearly reaching the size of the overgrown rat across from her. "It doesn't matter if you're worth it or not! You have a responsibility to her, and to us, and to everybody else, to try!" The black cat yowled... then she flung herself at the rat.

The rat slashed at her and tried to duck away, but Pipsqueak caught it. She clung to the rat's side and bit at its hindleg, ripping away some of the flesh. The rat screeched in pain and turned its head to bite at Pipsqueak's flank, sinking its teeth through her fur and into skin and muscle...

Oliver leapt forward and pounced on the rat.

The rat squealed beneath Oliver's paws as the orange cat drove it to the ground. There was a second of struggle... then Oliver reached down and bit into the rat's neck.

The rat dissolved into a puddle of goo.

Silence filled the dreary forest for a moment while the two cats panted for air... then Oliver climbed back to his paws. He walked over to the Pipsqueak and nudged at her side, then licked over the bite marks on her leg.

Pipsqueak growled, but finally pushed herself back to a standing position. She wobbled, twitching her tail for balance, then looked up at the orb glowing red above her. "We're not giving up on you. Neither is your lady.  So you can't give up, either. Come on. You need to come back with us."

The spirit's reddish glow pulsed, lighting up the trees around the cats... and it drifted towards Pipsqueak. "Okay. Show me the way."